


Fuzzy Headed

by wenfei



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:35:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25964482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wenfei/pseuds/wenfei
Summary: (￣▽￣)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 27





	Fuzzy Headed

When Calamity first fell from the sky, the planet was unperturbed. Many a meteorite had preceded it. Many would follow. Life would continue, or so the planet assumed, until it discovered Calamity could use cells as vectors into the lifestream.

In death, life returned to the lifestream. That was normal.

However, on  _ this _ particular star orbiting this particular corner of the cosmos, life unfortunately began as a cell. This was a problem, but that was okay, because problems are just solutions waiting to happen, and wait, the planet could. Or so the planet assumed.

In the planet's defense, it was a good and reasonable assumption (at first).

To start, there weren't that many Cetra, and they couldn't host many of Calamity's cells—Calamity was vicious like that.

When the first victims of Calamity returned to the lifestream, the planet destroyed the bits of Calamity that they carried with them. The work was manageable, if a bit tedious.

When the Cetra began dying en masse, the planet's work became…less manageable. But that was okay, because problem (Calamity), meet solution (materia). In retrospect, the planet could have been more specific regarding the  _ application _ of its solution, but in the planet's defense, it was a good and reasonable assumption that the Cetra would know what to do.

_ As above, so below, _ the Cetra liked to say.

_ As above, so below, _ the planet agreed, and the world's first mako spring sprang into existence, bubbling cheerfully in the middle of somebody's yurt. But that was okay. The owner wouldn't mind—he, totally coincidentally, fell into a coma later that day.

Satisfied with the state of affairs above ground, the planet retreated to its work below ground. Catching Calamity exhausted the planet. It was like…

_ Like catching sand with a sieve, _ somebody's memory supplied.

Warily, the planet turned its attention towards this latest thread of energy to rejoin the lifestream.

Infected.

Its reaction was visceral. Even so, the planet's destructive magic was unable to take root before the thread broke, scattering inky grains into tortuous currents. Tiredly, the planet abandoned its old quarry and gave chase to the new.

For a while, things got worse, but that was to be expected. The planet did not learn how to destroy Calamity in a day. The Cetra needed time to master the black materia. At first things would get worse, but then they would get better. The planet had faith. As above, so below.

Time passed, and the threat waned. No new infections plagued the lifestream. The planet spent the reprieve rooting out the remnants of Calamity. The planet rested. Slowly, the planet recovered.

Things got better until one day, some humans fell into the lifestream and carried with them the sum total of Calamity previously purged. The planet recoiled. The touch of Calamity was an ache like no other. What  _ happened _ ?

The North Crater was a wreck.  _ Earth. Ice. Gravity. Contain. Barrier. Seal. _ And others. Evidence of numerous stopgaps used, but not the solution. The black materia remained unused. The planet assumed the Cetra had known what to do with it. In retrospect, this was a poor assumption, but that was okay. So long as the Cetra communed with the planet, this could be fixed.

Ifalna died.

Sometimes, it was really difficult being a planet instead of people.

_ Give up, _ Sephiroth drawled as his cells dispersed into the lifestream.

The planet ignored the abomination. It had better things to do, important memories to contain.

_ Again, _ the planet commanded.

"Wait—"

Yes, wait. The planet would wait as many times as it took for the wayfarer to get it right. The planet had all the time in the world to wait—or so the planet assumed.

。。。

Blink and you'd miss the world changed overnight.

When Zack was born, his mother planted bellflowers in a window box and mounted them outside his room. When Zack turned two, the flowers died and his father lied, saying his mother was sick from the seasonal flu. Zack wasn't supposed to remember he lied.

When Zack was six, his father took his hoe. He gave Zack a sword and made Zack walk through two mountains, sixteen touch me's, and a potato terrace to go to school, where Zack learned things like how to read the menu of his father's PHS.

Although his mother's hair was brown instead of black, and her cheeks were way too hollow, Zack still thought she was the prettiest person he'd ever seen or heard. He didn't think she had the seasonal flu, though. When Zack got the flu, he turned puffy and red, not skinny and pale. And he definitely never died from the seasonal flu.

When Zack was eleven, the professor cancelled school forever. Something something, lifestream something. Then he made everyone line up and draw chores from a hat. Zack's job was to help the professor pack.

"I'll miss you," Zack said sadly as the professor handed him a jar of dirt.

The professor flipped through his notes, then said, "εуλ 1990."

Zack carefully printed the year on the jar and put the jar in a box labeled SPECIMENS.

"Will you come back and visit?" Zack asked hopefully.

"No." The professor handed Zack a jar filled with slightly darker dirt. "εуλ 1986."

"Oh." Zack deflated. "Well, can I write you?"

The professor paused. "…No. εуλ 1997."

Zack accepted another jar, this time tan with cracked clay, and dutifully wrote on its label. "Why not?"

Another long pause. "I wouldn't receive it."

Zack frowned. "Why not?"

"I just won't."

"But why?"

The professor handed Zack yet another jar. "εуλ 1996," he said.

"It's only a letter," Zack said. "Please."

"No," the professor said in a very final sort of way.

" _ Please. _ "

"Fair," the professor said sternly.

"Pretty please."

。。。

Zack never did manage to wrangle an address out of his teacher.

When Zack gave up his wheedling because he had to be home before dusk, he did so intending to return the next day and  _ whine _ —as in a nasal, drawling, bona fide whine; the kind that never got Zack what he nominally asked for, but reliably got his dad out of the room long enough for Zack to have some quality time with his dad's (and hopefully the professor's) PHS. People put their entire  _ lives _ on those things. Zack would know; he had borrowed his fair share of them from various Shinra employees milling about the outpost, just to see what the annual hoo-ha surrounding the newfangled devices was all about. This year, they added touchscreen, which might've been cool if you didn't need to biff the screen into the circuit board to get a response.

The next morning, when the stars were but half-faded and the dawn vaguely flecked with gold, Zack was already zipping through two mountains and making short work of a touch me. Strategic whining worked best on people who were cranky and tired and only halfway out of bed.

Alas, his efforts were made in vain. The professor wasn't in his tent, although a squad of troopers and a SOLDIER certainly were. The latter gave him a sleepy stink eye that slid pointedly towards the tent flap. Smiling sheepishly, Zack slowly backed out the way he came.

Zack scuffed his foot as he looked around. He supposed he could try some other tents, but the professor already had a perfectly good bed in  _ this _ tent, with crisp white sheets folded into a block of tofu. Zack had a motley afghan tossed over a lumpy pile of straw.

He wandered back to the outpost's trabeated entrance sign and poked the trooper dozing beneath. The trooper started and squinted blearily at Zack.

"Good morning," Zack politely said. "Where's the professor?"

The trooper yawned and mussed Zack's hair. "Hey, kid. What's hoppin'?"

Zack rolled his eyes. With a touch of impatience, Zack replied, "I'm looking for the professor." Preferably before he got his morning coffee.

"Oh, him?" The trooper waved vaguely northeast. "He's gone. Him and his whole team left yesterday."

Zack blinked. " _ Already? _ "

"Well, yeah. That's efficiency for ya." The trooper tilted his head. "Didn't you know he was, uh, leaving?"

"Yes, but…" Zack trailed off. Well, they  _ did _ spend the whole of yesterday, including Zack's lunchtime, packing the professor's stuff, which is why Zack even knew where the man's bed was. Zack sighed. "Do you know where he went?"

The trooper shrugged. Leaning back against a post, he closed his eyes and said, "Couldn't say. Shinra doesn't pay us to be nosy, you know?"

"Do they pay you to sleep?" Zack asked dryly.

"Ha. Make fun of me when you have a job, runt." Lifting a finger, the trooper pointed down the dusty road. "Run along now. I know for a fact you don't have school today…or ever."

Zack scowled at the trooper. The trooper feigned snoring.

…probably feigned.

Zack sighed and shuffled away. Certainly, he'd made his fair share of complaints about school—it was practically self-ostracizing not to. But while the others made them in good humor, there was always a touch of genuine…not resentment, but something approaching that.

After all, this was Gongaga. If your father was born in Gongaga, you died in Gongaga. Like mako and death, it was inevitable. Gongaga had bred a thousand generations of laborers before Zack, and would breed a thousand more after he passed. For someone like them, math was useful; the history and literature of Shinra, less so.

For Zack, it wasn't fun, but it wasn't bad, and now it was gone—gone with an aching finality that hadn't been there last night; gone like the professor was  _ gone; _ and abruptly, he realized the world felt smaller for that.

He decided to take the scenic route home. It meandered up a hill and crested on a flat outcrop that could generously be described as thistles clawing through parched earth, and nothing at all like the vivacious riot of color Zack had seen on his father's PHS. There was a cenotaph here, inscribed with Gongagan family names. At the foot of the cenotaph, there was a little yellow chocobo snoozing in its shade.

Hrmm. Zack rubbed his eyes.

Zack didn't think—scratch that, he  _ knew _ chocobos were neither native to nor reared here. Thousand generations and such. Well, it  _ was _ summer. Maybe he was having a heatstroke, though it would be just his luck to have skipped the warning signs and gone straight for the jackpot shy of coma or death.

You didn't fu– _ mess _ around with a heat stroke. He ran for the shade.

The chocobo chirped a startled  _ kweh _ when Zack tripped and fell on its tiny head.

It wasn't a hallucination.

For a panicked moment, Zack feared he squashed the poor thing, but his concern was misplaced. With a trilling shriek, the  _ absolute butthole _ of a bird lurched to its feet and drove its beak into Zack's left cheek. Definitely not a hallucination; Zack was pretty sure hallucinations only hurt your brain, and the cheek that smarted was not the one near his head.

Zack whirled to give the featherbrained fuzzball a piece of his mind, but the chocobo was faster, and then it was upon him, pecking this and that.

_ Thock thock thock thock. _

"Ow! Quit it, you stupid bird," Zack hissed through his arms, now braced over his face.

The bird pecked harder.

Zack grit his teeth.  _ You wouldn't kick a puppy, would you, Fair? _

_ THOCK THOCK THOCK THOCK. _

Zack was spared the temptation of qualifying that thought. The chocobo, apparently bored of turning Zack's arm into swiss cheese, reared back and gave him a feral hiss. Warm, minty breath washed over him—

_ ♪ Buy Shinra Complete for bright and healthy teeth! ♪ _

—then there was a claw digging into his scalp; his neck felt like it was going to snap in half; and the deranged chicken landed behind him, kicking up a dust storm when Zack turned to look.

"Hey!" Zack tried to shout, but oddly his teeth felt too heavy for his mouth. He won a throatful of dirt for his efforts and fell to his knees hacking it out.

Zack tried to raise a fist and shake it in the direction of the bolting chocobo, but his arms felt like lead pipes swimming through molasses. He glanced at his hand and that's when he saw it—a gauze-like sheen rippling over his skin. Zack stared and stared as it rapidly dissipated along gossamer lines, color fading from lavender to white. Had it not been for an invisible weight vanishing with the glow, Zack would have sworn it'd not been there at all.

You could never quite trust your brain when you were having a heatstroke.


End file.
